1. Field of Invention
This invention is directed to methods and systems that process images using summed-area tables.
2. Description of Related Art
Digitally reproducing, transferring and/or displaying various types of images presently occurs using a variety of devices and systems in a variety of environments. A digital image may be input into a device, processed, and then output from the device, for example. In some applications, it may be necessary or desirable to process the image between the inputting at one device and outputting the data from that one device for the specific purpose of using the processed image data by another device. In other applications, it may be necessary or desirable to process the input image for some particular application within a device itself.
In image processing, images are represented in a wide variety of manners. Various techniques have been implemented in image processing.
In various exemplary embodiments of image processing, summed-area tables are used for processing the image. In these exemplary embodiments, a summed-area table has an entry for each pixel of the image. Each such entry is the sum of all values in the rectangular region with one corner of the region at the corner of the image, for example, the upper left corner, and the opposing corner of the region at the pixel.
This invention provides systems and methods that is generate non-rectangular summed-area tables.
This invention separately provides an image data manager that generates non-rectangular summed-area tables to process the image data.
In accordance with the systems and methods of this invention, the manager is capable of generating summed-area tables for areas that approximate circles.
Various exemplary embodiments of the summed areas usable with the summed-areas tables and systems and methods for generating and using these summed area tables according to this invention include non-rectangular regions.
In various exemplary embodiments of image processing systems using the systems and methods of this invention, problems in processing images having textures that have no special direction or orientation can be reduced or eliminated.
These and other features and advantages of the systems and methods of this invention are described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments.